I don’t know why I had never thought of becoming a farmhand when I was younger, because of all the jobs I had ever had in my life, farming most suited my temperament. Unhappily, I did not always suit Mr Bogle’s temperament and I would avoid him as much as possible, but I still had to see him every day first thing in the morning, and he would begin the day by commenting on my ancestry, the probable calling of my mother, my appearance, my character and my general usefulness. It became a regular ritual, almost a form of prayer, and if a morning passed in which he greeted me with nothing more substantial than ‘you’re late, you useless bastard’, I would be uneasy for the rest of the day.
Mrs Bogle would apologize for his behaviour.
‘It’s him having such a nasty mouth which keeps him such a nice man,’ she explained. ‘You see, we’re all a bit nasty, aren’t we, and if it doesn’t come out in words it’s bound to come out somewhere.’
I would eat with the Bogles on Sunday afternoons, and when I suggested that my visits might be bad for Mr Bogle’s health, she said: ‘No, I really think you’re good for him—like some sort of salts.’
‘Sennapods,’ said Ed, who was standing by.
Ed remained at home for two or three weeks, and then became a gardener on an estate near Buckingham.
‘It’s a pity he’s not found a nice girl yet,’ said Mrs Bogle, ‘I do want to be a mother-in-law.’
‘A fine, healthy-looking young man like him,’ I said. ‘If he was Jewish he would have been snapped up years ago.’
‘He’s not even Christian,’ she sighed. ‘He’s not anything. Being religious is such a nice way of meeting nice people, I do wish he was something.’
I missed Ed, he was company. He would never say much, but to sit next to him in the ‘Dog and Duck’ munching crisps was the nearest thing I had to conversation. I would go out a lot with Mick, but that was like being alone in company.
Once when we had been walking along together for about two miles, in complete silence, he suddenly stopped and turned to me:
‘Get’s a bit lonely sometimes, don’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and we walked on. About half an hour later he turned to me again.
‘It’ll be better in the summer,’ he said.
Summer came. When it rained, as it usually did, it wasn’t bad. When the day’s work was over I could stay at home and read and listen to the promenade concerts on the radio. I think music was meant for rainy days. It was the fine days I couldn’t stand—I don’t mean at work, I mean after work. The sky would turn a reddish pink and then break up into successive golden arches, or little bronze floating clouds. Once when I was sitting outside the ‘Dog and Duck’ with a pint of beer in my hand and nothing in my mind, an American tourist happened by and asked if I was the oldest inhabitant.
‘Wait till the autumn comes,’ said Mick, ‘you’ll like it then.’
And the autumn came.
One day early in October a visiting party of threshers came to the farm. A couple of ricks of barley had been standing near the cow-shed for as long as I could remember and they were now so full of mice that they threatened to creep away on their own.
The threshing box was a vast contraption commanded by a small man in a cloth cap and with a walrus moustache who stood on the top like an admiral on the quarter-deck.
My job was to clear away the chaff as it came whirling out of the machine, and as I had done the job once before I came equipped with a Balaclava helmet and a pair of thick motorcycle goggles.
Neither Bogle nor Mick recognized me in my new outfit, and when the commander of the machine saw me advancing with rake in hand he nearly toppled off his perch into the thresher.
‘Blimey,’ said one of the hands, ‘the thing from outer space.’
It proved to be a very sensible outfit and I was able to do the work without any great discomfort.
We finished the first rick in the morning. In the afternoon while we were working on the second one, I noticed that one by one the men were slipping furtively away, and returning five or ten minutes later, buttoning their flies or pushing in their shirt-tails. The commander was the first to go, then Bogle, then Mick, then the fellow in charge of the tractor, then one of the boys on the rick and so on, until finally, a lad of about fifteen who had been helping me with the chaff, returned, nudged, and said something I could not hear. I pulled my Balaclava helmet away from my ear.
‘You’ll have to shout,’ I said.
‘It’s my turn next,’ he said. The chaff was shooting out in great clouds and I could not stop to ask what he was talking about. When I turned round he was gone. I found it impossible to cope with all the chaff by myself, and I went over to Bogle to complain.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘it’ll be your turn next.’
Ten minutes later my assistant reappeared.
‘It’s you now,’ he said.
‘It’s your turnatess.’
‘My what?’
‘Your turnatess.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘In the next field, behind the hay-rick.’
I went to the next field and behind the hay-rick was a plump young girl with her skirt up.
‘I’m Tess,’ she said.
Winter came suddenly. One evening I was sitting outside the ‘Dog and Duck’ killing gnats as if it was mid-summer, the next I was bent over my kitchen stove, shivering, and when I woke the next morning, the grass, the hedges, the trees were white with frost. I had never been so cold since I was in Belfast.
‘I like farming,’ I thought to myself, as I tried to light the gas with a shaking hand, ‘but if a rich uncle was to leave me a fortune I would leave tomorrow.’
When darkness came it turned foggy and although Mrs Bogle had made a fire for me, I did not feel much more cheerful. I suddenly felt at an absolute loss about what to do with myself. Then it occurred to me that I had never written to any of my friends since I had left the old age home at East-leigh, a matter of nearly two years. It was very remiss of me, and I decided to make amends right away, but though I thought for a long time, the only friend I could think of was Mrs Kamenetz-Podolsk.
Dear Mrs K-P,
It has just struck me that I never thanked you for the delicious cake you baked me as a going-away present. I know that was nearly two years ago, but your cake has been on my conscience since then, and I am sorry also for not replying to all those letters you used to send me, but as you know, I’m a bad letter-writer—which reminds me of the motorist who knocked me down and explained that it wasn’t really his fault, because he was a bad driver.
Your stuffed owl which is watching over me at this moment, and whom I have nick-named Gladys, has brought me luck, because I now have the best job I have ever had. My main work is to keep the cows and the cow-sheds sanitary. At first I found it difficult to bend down, now I’m finding it difficult to straighten up, but in any case it is not very important to walk straight, as walking bent gives you a change of view.
I don’t see many people so I’ve got into the habit of arguing with the man on the radio. I argue with the newsreaders, I argue with the commentators, I argue with the man who reads the epilogue. It keeps my mind active and saves me from talking to myself. One day the radio broke and it took a week to get repaired, but it was marvellous—like having an old friend brought back from the dead.
I am sorry to tell you that Gladys has had an accident and lost an eye, and although I searched high and low I could not find it, but as I could not have her standing around with one eye, a neighbour has kindly sewn a button in its place.
My neighbours are a farmer and his wife. They are both rather kindly, he a little less so than her, and some of the things he says to me can sound a little uncharitable, but we get on very well. His wife is Christian: he is merely a goy.
Winter has come suddenly, and the way I feel now I think I’ve got pneumonia.
If this should find you as it leaves me, you’ve got my sympathy.
Yours faithfully,
Berl Brisker.
She replied by return of post:
Dearest Berl,
I could see by the way you didn’t mention a word about it, that you were bursting to tell me that you’re getting divorced. That is the best news I’ve heard about you ever since I don’t know when. I’m not going to ask why you didn’t do it sooner, because I might as well ask why you got married in the first place, but as a good friend of you and your wife, I hope you’ll be as happy divorced as you were miserable married—even if it isn’t any of my business to say so.
I am sure you are interested in what is happening in Eastleigh. Well I shan’t say who’s died, because that isn’t news, is it, but listen to this. Miss Hirscheimer has got married to Mr Bollock. (She’s made him change his name to Pollock, but he’s the same nasty old so-and-so that he always was). I baked them a special cake for the occasion, and we all had a happy time, though bride and groom—what with all the excitement—were taken ill shortly after and they spent their honeymoon in hospital, and not even in the same ward. Miss Kischenbaum—you remember her, the lady with the palsie and dropsie—was Maid of Honour, and the late Mr Beigelson was best man.
We’ve got a new housekeeper who is much better than your wife, but her husband is not half as good as you were. I’ve always said, and I told this to Mr Urbane-Urban, that they’ll never get another warden like you. You were not very efficient, he said, and I told him, ‘Mr Urbane-Urban,’ I said, ‘efficient anyone can be, but helpful you’ve got to be born.’ Everybody who was here in your time, and who is still alive, speaks very nicely about you. If I had money, you know what I would do? I would open a private old age home. With my cooking and your management we would make a fortune.
Well, as a matter of fact, I have money. Not much, but some. My Aunt Eve—did you know her? She was a saintly old lady, and she had her house full of candles and Rabbis—well she died and left me some money, but that’s all beside the point.
You don’t write much about the countryside. It must be lovely. I would like to come and see it some week-end.
With all my best wishes,
Katrina Kamenetz-Podolsk.
P.S. I would put up at a hotel, because people might talk.
P.P.S. I’m coming this Friday.
When she arrived I hardly recognized her. Instead of the plump, red-cheeked woman with glasses, there was a plump, red-cheeked woman without.
‘What’s the matter,’ I said, ‘lost your glasses?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve learned to manage without them,’ but as she came nearer I could see she was wearing kotex lenses, or whatever you call them, but I didn’t think it kind to comment. She blinked at me for some time, as if not sure who I was. My week-day suit had not stood up well to farmyard life, and my hat had turned green because of all it had been through, but otherwise I didn’t think I had changed much.
‘Dear Berl,’ she said, ‘I don’t like the way you look at all.’
‘You’re no film-star yourself,’ I thought to myself, but I said: ‘You took me by surprise. I’ve had no time to change.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t mean your clothes. You’ve become a bit bent, and your head’s gone a little to the side. You haven’t been looking after yourself.’
‘What’s wrong with having my head to the side. Who said everybody’s head’s got to be right in the centre.’
‘And you look thinner.’
‘Who wants to be fat?’
‘I don’t like the way you look at all’
‘Mrs K-P,’ I said, ‘I don’t know anybody who does.’
The first thing she did was to unpack a pair of candle-sticks and a packet of candles.
‘What do you do on Shabbos?’ she asked. ‘Who lights your Shabbos candles?’
‘Nobody. It’s a woman’s job.’
‘And Shul?’
‘Shul?’
‘Do you go to Shul on Shabbos?’
‘How can I? The nearest Shul is forty miles away.’
‘So you don’t light candles, and you don’t go to Shul. What sort of Jewish life have you?’
‘I read the Jewish Chronicle.’
She sighed.
‘Berl, you’re going to the dogs. I can see it looking at you, I can see it listening to you. You’re going to the dogs.’
‘You can go to worse places, believe me—I’ve been to them. And in any case, if you call this going to the dogs, I like it. The dogs is where I should be.’
‘But you said yourself you’ve got no sort of Jewish life.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘It’s got everything to do with it. If you become a great philosopher, a scientist, a thinker, a painter, I don’t know what, well, you can be what you like, you can forget everything about what you were, but for ordinary people like you and me, Berl, if we’re not Jewish we’re nothing.’
‘Mrs K-P, I’m as Jewish today as I was the day I was circumcised, and heaven forbid that I should ever try to be anything else—because I should never get away with it. It’s built into me. I once had a Christian clergyman as a friend, and he said to me, “Mr Brisker,” he said, “to see you walking down the street is like watching a Hebrew captive on the way to Babylon.’ And besides, I don’t have to go to Shul to find God.’
‘Who’s talking about God, Berl? I’m talking about being a good Jew.’
‘Well, I’m a better Jew taking a long walk on a Shabbos morning than I would be talking to my neighbours in Shul.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, Berl, you’ve got an answer for everything. Can’t you listen without answering for a minute? When I said you were going to the dogs I didn’t only mean you weren’t living like a good man should, I meant you weren’t looking like a good man should. You don’t look happy. Ah.’ She lifted a warning finger. ‘I said you shouldn’t answer. Wait. Listen. You’ll speak when I’m finished. In any case I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me you’re perfectly happy. But for you to be happy is to be where your wife isn’t. Is that enough? You’re still a young man. Well, at least you’re not an old one. You’ve still got a chance for much happiness in life—I mean real happiness, not just the sort you have when your tzores stops for a minute. And if you have a chance to be happy and you don’t take it, that’s a sin—a bigger sin than not lighting Shabbos candles, or not going to Shul, or anything like that.’
‘Can I say something now?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re quite sure?’
‘Go on.’
‘Because if you want to blow your top you’re entitled to it. I’m in no hurry.’
‘I said go on.’
‘Mrs K-P, I’m not a deep man. I’m not a thinking man. I’m not a philosopher, but it so happens I know what makes me happy, and like everything else, being happy depends on what you’re used to. Some horses don’t need much hay to keep them going, and I don’t need much happiness to keep me going—because maybe I haven’t been used to much. If someone was to come and bring me a big lump of happiness I would get indigestion—emotional indigestion. Happiness is for me the day-to-day things. Waking up in a warm bed on a cold morning and knowing I’ve still got ten minutes to lie in; having the top of the milk with my sugar puffs; sitting in the toilet reading the morning paper on my day off; making footsteps in the frost; polishing my boots in the evening till their toes glow; putting out crumbs on the window-sill for the birds, and watching them eat it—specially when there’s been snow and they leave their small arrows all over; cooking supper and listening to the news; eating supper and listening to the “Archers”; feeling the crackle of stubble after a field’s been cut; watching rabbits chase each other by the hedgerows; ducks marching three abreast through the village; black, bare branches against white skies; pink hawthorns against a blue sky, or ducks at night, flying with their necks extended, or——’
‘Berl, Berl, stop it. You’re not talking like a happy man, you’re talking like a poet. They’re the most miserable people on earth, poets, spending half their life starving and the other half committing suicide. All these things you’re talking about aren’t happiness. A really happy person takes them for granted. Real happiness is—you know what real happiness is? Naches.’
‘Naches? what’s naches?’
‘You mean to say that you know so little Yiddish that you don’t know——’
‘I’ve never heard of the word.’
‘I thought so. Never heard of naches and he’s trying to tell me what happiness is. Naches is the happiness you get from doing well or seeing your children do well.’
‘You mean the opposite of tzores?’
‘Exactly. When you say you’re happy all you mean is that you’ve no tzores, and I say that isn’t enough.’ ‘What I need is naches.’
‘Exactly.’
‘All right, Mrs K-P, you’ve convinced me. I’ll have some naches. Get me a gallon of it for a trial period.’
‘Now you’re making fun of me, Berl. If you want to make fun of me, I don’t want to talk to you.’
While I went upstairs to change she prepared a small meal, and I don’t know whether it was because I was tired of my own cooking, or whether she had learnt to cook, but the food was delicious.
‘Makes a difference to have a woman in the house, doesn’t it, Berl?’ she said, looking at me over her bowl of soup.
‘It does,’ I said, ‘though having a good, tender chicken also helps.’
‘Berl, if I should ever get a kind word out of you, I’ll drop dead.’
‘That’s why I’ve been careful about not using them.’
‘Men, they never grow up. Either they say everything to hide feelings they ain’t got, or they say nothing to hide feelings they have got. I’ve known you for so long I think you can be a bit open with me. Tell me, aren’t you glad I’m here?’
‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Because if you’re not, I can still go back.’
‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘There’s trains till midnight and it’ll take me a minute to phone for a taxi.’
‘Mrs K-P, I’m glad you’re here.’
‘My name’s Katrina.’
‘But I’ve always called you Mrs K-P.’
‘Then it’s about time you called me Katrina.’
‘That’s much better, only I’ll tell you, I used to have a friend who called me Kitty. You can call me Kitty if you like.’
‘Katrina is nicer.’
‘Actually I was named after an aunt of mine. The things she did I would never mention at a Shabbos table, or even a weekday table.’
‘What did she do?’
‘I’ll tell you another time.’
After the soup and the chicken we had lemon tea.
‘You’ve got this house all to yourself?’ she asked. ‘Does Mr Urbane-Urban never come down on a visit?’
‘Once in a while, but only for business.’
‘Does he ever have anything to say to you?’
‘Always the same thing. “How are we, Brisker?” he says, and I always answer the same thing: “Speaking for myself, I’m fine.”’
‘But he never stays here?’
‘Never.’
‘You mean you’ve got this house all to yourself?’
I looked at her for a moment, then I said:
‘Katrina, you’re about to make an immoral suggestion.’
‘Heaven forbid. I’ve got a room the size of this house waiting for me at the hotel. In another twenty minutes I’m phoning for a taxi. No, I was just thinking it must be very lonely for you, specially now that the nights are getting longer.’
‘The nights were getting longer last year also.’
‘Aren’t you frightened to be here by yourself, specially on a night like this. Can you hear the wind?’
‘The wind here blows all the time.’
‘And aren’t you frightened?’
‘Listen to it.’
We listened in silence.
‘It would frighten me out of my wits,’ she said.
‘These things don’t bother me. As a matter of fact this house is supposed to be haunted.’
‘You don’t mean it?’
‘I do.’
She rose. ‘Don’t make fun at me, Berl, it’s not funny.’
‘You mean you believe in ghosts?’
‘What I believe in and what I’m frightened of have got nothing to do with each other. Berl’—she said this entreatingly—‘you are making fun of me, aren’t you? You’re making it all up.’
‘Well actually it was my friend Mick who told me about it. I’d never believe in such things, but the more I see of Mick, the more I’m sure he’s a ghost himself. Shall I introduce him to you?’
‘Berl, I said it’s not funny. If you want me to go I’ll go this minute.’
‘But what is there to be nervous about? There either are ghosts or there aren’t. If there aren’t you’ve nothing to worry about, and if there are they’re only dead, and if they’re not dead they’re not ghosts—so what have you got to be frightened of.’
‘Do me a favour, Berl, stop talking about it.’
I stopped and she sat down and we continued our meal.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘Lost your appetite?’
‘You’ve upset me,’ she said.
‘What have I done?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Right, let’s not talk about it.’ So we didn’t talk. But I couldn’t remain silent, for I had sliced up a juicy pineapple I had been keeping for a special occasion for her sake, and she wasn’t touching it.
‘It’s a sin to waste good food,’ I said.
‘Keep it for tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Berl, would you like to order me a taxi, I want to——’
‘You’re going already? You’ve just come.’
‘I got up very early this morning, and I’m tired.’ The wind gave a howl and she moved closer to me. ‘I don’t know how you can live here all alone,’ she said.
‘It’s only the wind. I love the sound of it—listen.’
‘I don’t want to listen.’
‘It can’t——’
‘Listen,’ she said, and grasped my arm so suddenly I got a fright. ‘Can you hear?’
‘Of course I can hear. I told you, it’s the wind.’
‘No, listen,’ and her grip on my arm was so fierce I found it painful. ‘There’s something moving upstairs.’
‘Upstairs?’ I said.
‘Upstairs, can’t you hear?’
We listened together in silence.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘that’ll be the ghost.’
‘Berl, I said you mustn’t joke.’ She was now quite cross, almost in tears.
‘Don’t let it upset you,’ I said. ‘I was only pulling your leg. This house isn’t haunted. I should drop dead if it is,’ and saying this I dropped to the floor and rolled under the table. She gave a loud screech, and fled screaming from the house. I jumped to my feet and ran after her, and called, but the louder I called the faster she ran, and finally I returned breathless to the house.
I had overdone it. All I wanted to do was to make her jump, and I had frightened the poor old soul out of her wits. I should have remembered that she did not have a sense of humour—cooks never have.
I stood puffing by the door, wondering what to do next. The light in Bogle’s bedroom had gone on, and he was sticking his great, fat head out of the window to see where the noise had come from, ten minutes after it had died away. The wind was fierce and cold, and the sound of a nearby tree cracking sent me scampering inside.
I began clearing up from the table, then on an impulse put on my hat and goggles, and cycled down to the village.
She was staying at the ‘King’s Arms’ and the manager, a small man with white hair and bushy eyebrows, took one look at me and said: ‘I’m sorry, we’re full right up to the beams. There’s people sleeping in the bath, and we’re not likely to have any room for some time.’
‘I’ve come to see Mrs Kamenetz-Podolsk,’ I said.
‘Did Dr Coomb send you? Are you his locum? I’m glad you’ve come. The poor woman’s done her nut—rushed in wailing and screaming at the top of her voice, and collapsed on that couch there—nearly gave my poor wife a fit.’
‘I’m not a doctor,’ I said, ‘I’m a friend.’
‘Well you’d better go up quick whoever you are. Don’t know what’s happening to this place. Used to be the time when all I’d have on a Friday night would be couples from Oxford coming up for a quiet bit of adultery, now I’m getting all sorts of odd bods. I used to make it a rule never to take people coming by themselves—specially women. There’s something odd about people by themselves. I should never have given her a room, never. She’s quiet now, but I’m sure when she came screaming in she must have frightened half my regulars away—she looked like some avenging angel, or the sort of nightmare you have when you’ve something on your conscience. I should never have given her a room. And she’s not going to stay up there, I can tell you that. I’m not having this place turned into an asylum. Whether on her feet or on her back she’s going out tomorrow. I’d a mind to put her out tonight. If you’re her friend you should know better than leaving people like her roaming wild over the countryside. She could do herself mischief, if she hasn’t done it already.’
All this time I was trying to get in one short sentence.
‘Which room is she in?’
‘On top of this one,’ he said, waving a hand and pouring himself a large whisky with the other, ‘room thirteen—and see you don’t get her started if you don’t know how to have her stopped. Cheers.’
I went up the creaking staircase and along the creaking floorboards, and stopped outside room thirteen. I thought I could hear the sound of whimpering. I knocked. There was no reply. I knocked louder.
‘Who’s that?’ she said.
‘Me.’
‘Who?’
‘Me. Berl Brisker.’
‘Berl?’
‘Yes.’
She opened the door slowly, just a crack, and put her nose to it.
‘Are you living or dead?’ she asked.
‘Living.’
‘Then go to hell,’ she said, and slammed the door.
I felt much lighter and happier as I peddled back to the farm, but when I reached the farm lane I stopped dead. There was a light in the cottage, in one of the upstairs windows, a flickering light like a candle or paraffin lamp.
I am not a nervous person. I don’t believe in ghosts, in fairies, in Santa Claus, in anything I couldn’t bump into except God (and Him I only give the benefit of the doubt), but the moon had now come out and the wind was screeching like a sow in labour, and when I saw the light flickering in an attic room I suddenly felt as if my skin was coming loose on my body.
I looked at my watch. It was ten to twelve. When I looked up again the light was gone. Perhaps I had imagined it. It was late, I was tired and I had had a heavy meal. That, the full moon and the wind could have made me imagine anything. I got back on my bike, and peddled up the lane as fast as I could, with my head bent low. When I straightened up I could see the lights again.
There was only one thing to do and I did it. I went straight over to Bogle’s house and knocked so loud on the door it nearly caved in. He stuck a startled head out of an upstairs window, and when he saw me he began to swear with such vehemence that he nearly toppled out on top of me.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said, when he had cursed himself hoarse, ‘but’, and I lowered my voice to what I hoped was a whisper, ‘there’s something odd going on.’ I pointed a finger in the direction of the cottage. ‘Can you see?’
‘See what?’
‘There’s a light in the attic and I never——’
‘There’s no bloody light in the bloody attic, you bloody bastard.’ And neither there was.
This started him on a new paroxysm which finally brought Mrs Bogle out of her bed. I tried to explain what had happened but I could not be heard above the gush of his curses, and I bade her a good night and moved off. The cottage remained in darkness but I kept away from it. I went instead to the hay-loft, buttoned my coat up to my neck, piled hay on top of me, and was asleep in a minute.